Former Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) investigator Jonathan Ferris has sued the head of Malta’s whistleblower unit after his request for official protection was shot down.

External Whistleblower Unit head Philip Massa confirmed last February that Ferris’ request for whistleblower status had been denied because he had “failed to act in line with the dispositions of Protection of the Whistleblower Act”.

Ferris – who claims he was sacked from the FIAU because he was about to expose high-level corruption – has now sued Massa on the grounds that he abused of a public authority by denying him whistleblower status.

He also confirmed for the first time that he had passed on documents to Massa to prove the legitimacy of his whistleblower application, but without confirming what these documents consisted of.

“In February 2018, [Massa] sent Ferris a succinct letter telling him he didn’t qualify for protection because he wasn’t planning to undertake internal whistleblowing,” the court application – signed by Ferris’ lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Andrew Borg Cardona – reads. “Ferris is of the humble opinion that this argument lacks any legal justification, not to mention logic, and indicates that Massa took into consideration factors that were either unnecessary or irrelevant.”

“How can Ferris conduct internal whistleblowing on the FIAU when, as he humbly believes, he was removed from the unit precisely because he was getting too close to uncovering results that were politically uncomfortable to government politicians? Ferris wouldn’t have needed to blow the whistle if he had been left in his job and allowed to investigate, and his need for whistleblower status emerged precisely because he was sacked.”

Ferris is therefore requesting the court to declare that Massa’s actions constitute a breach of the law and to therefore revoke his decision to deny him whistleblower status.

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Tim Diacono

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]